༺ One Year Later ༻
A huge problem had occurred!
No, scratch that. It wasn’t just a huge problem; It was a really, really massive problem!
Lee Sehee, the director of Sehee Research Institute, was facing a gigantic problem.
A room with a bed, a bathroom, and some snacks scattered on the floor.
At first glance, the combination didn’t seem to be problematic at all. But considering the fact that iron bars stood where walls and doors should have been, the seemingly innocuous room quickly turned into a prison-like place.
However, besides the fact that she was confined, there was a bigger problem looming ahead; the terrible screams she kept hearing.
The most horrible screams she had ever heard rang out non-stop from beyond the steel bars, never stopping, even for a moment.
Grumble-!
She hadn’t eaten all day.
Even though she was hungry, and the food was served on time, she didn’t dare touch the food that was provided to her.
After all, it was simply impossible to know what would’ve happened if she put whatever that suspicious person gave her, into her mouth.
The one who kidnapped her was a prominent figure in the area who was already over 80 years old.
However, even a simple glance revealed that the old man’s appearance was anything but normal.
He had no muscle whatsoever and his skin was as dried up as a dead tree, leading one to believe he was some kind of mummy.
Despite his appearance, his agility and strength were far beyond that of a normal human. It was clear that he was a human who was related to an Object.
Although the whereabouts of the old man’s remaining family members were still unknown, it seemed highly likely, by the looks of things, that they were already dead.
The old man’s exact purpose was hard to predict, but it was quite easy to predict that the outcome would be anything but good.
The reason she could deduce as much?
That’s because outside the prison-like room she was in, human bones were piled up like a mound.
Besides that, just across the steel bars, stood a towering steel statue of a pig that captured her attention.
In the pig’s indifferent eyes, flames flickered.
Around the crimson pig statue, fragments of human bone were scattered about.
Drawing from her vast experience of studying Objects, it was likely that the old man’s odd strength as well as the mountain of bone fragments were all caused by that pig statue.
She couldn’t believe that something like this had happened as soon as she came to investigate another abnormal phenomenon that occurred in Seoul Forest…
A year ago, she had come to Seoul Forest to investigate an abnormal phenomenon and almost died. Now, once again, her life was in danger. Did she underestimate the danger of the Seoul Forest too much?
Scrape-!
At that moment, light footsteps echoed, accompanied by the sound of heavy stones scraping against each other.
It was the old man’s footsteps, which came down the stairs several times a day.
“You haven’t eaten yet?”
The old man’s hoarse voice echoed from outside the prison-like room.
Before long, he clicked his tongue and left the basement once again.
The old man’s glossy eyes were strangely creepy, but she still could not discern the reason.
Apart from that, she was curious about many other things.
Just what was the food that he kept trying to make her eat?
What was that ominous pig statue?
What were those piles of bones?
Was her conjecture about the old man’s physical abilities originating from the pig statue true?
He seemed to be kidnapping and killing people. For what reason was he doing it?
Despite jotting down every question in her notebook whenever they came to mind, the list only grew longer.
It would be nice if the staff at the Sehee Research Institute noticed their director’s absence and searched for her. Meanwhile, she needed to stay alive until they found her…
However, that seemed far from easy.
***
Leaving the loud ringing of the alarm, I drew back the curtains and opened the windows, filling my lungs with the clean morning air to shake off my drowsiness.
It was another pleasant morning.
Hanging my employee ID around my neck, I went out.
-Employee of Sehee Research Institute.
-Researcher Oh Yerin.
It was a simple-looking ID card that displayed only my photo and affiliation. Yet, unlike its bland nature, it was an indispensable item for me.
From boarding the bus that took me to and from the research complex, to accessing the internal canteen and the security facilities, there was not a single place that didn’t require the ID card.
I tapped my employee ID and boarded the bus that was waiting at the shuttle stop.
Once settled inside, I checked the news on my phone and learned that last night’s strange phenomenon was actually a fire incident.
The sudden abnormal phenomenon resulted in a lot of deaths.
Although it was merely an accident resulting in a large number of animal deaths near Seoul Forest, its gravity was heightened due to a similar occurrence last year.
Among the numerous articles, there were some that blatantly attacked our research institute with headlines like ‘Mismanagement of Sehee Research Institute?’
Since we were managing the Gray Reaper perfectly in our lab, I couldn’t help but feel it was unfair that such a slanderous article was posted against us.
Even though the others tentatively concluded that last year’s death incident was caused by an Object called ‘Gray Reaper’—which we took to our Sehee Research Institute—Director Unnie still stated otherwise.
Although I too believed that the Gray Reaper was a harmless Object, if I were to only look at the facts that had been revealed, it was clear that the incident was the Reaper’s doing.
Its ability to easily take lives made it the most plausible Object for causing an unidentified death incident.
Furthermore, after we caught the ‘Gray God of Death’ from Seoul Forest and transported it to our research institute, the series of deaths that had been occurring stopped completely, solidifying the suspicion.
The broadcast that I heard through my earphones kept talking about the significance of the death incident, the incident from a year ago, and our research institute that managed the Gray Reaper.
After passing through the lab’s security gate, I was greeted by the quiet containment facility.
Early in the morning when no one was at work.
It was a time when even the Gray Reaper, who slept and woke up regularly, had yet to awaken.
Even though the interior of the containment room was decorated like a typical inhabited room, the figure curled up on the large bed with its eyes shut was far from human—it was a creature with gray skin.
The creature was that very ‘Gray Reaper’, an Object that was rumored to be the most dangerous amongst all the Objects managed in Korea.
Most of the lab employees knew that contrary to its infamous reputation, the Gray Reaper was actually harmless. However, those unaware of that fact were highly likely to be overly afraid of the Gray Reaper.
The video of the Gray Reaper’s first appearance was the cause.
The Gray Reaper in that video quite literally looked like a god of death that had descended to earth.
In the video, a pack of wolves got tangled up, crashed into each other, and killed themselves, when all that the Gray Reaper did was just walk quietly through them.
Even though there were many fast and strong creatures, people couldn’t help but feel repulsed, seeing a being that could cause a large number of accidental deaths.
Despite its horrifying abilities, the Gray Reaper was, in reality, a cute and harmless Object.
At least over the past year, there had been no instance of it attacking a living creature for no reason.
As I looked at it for a while, I couldn’t resist poking the cheek of the sleeping Reaper for no reason.
The current time, when no one was at work, was my only opportunity to have exclusive access to the cute Reaper, so I should make the most of it.
***
I woke up to the sensation of something poking at my cheek.
She used to poke my cheek every morning, but perhaps because she didn’t see any signs of dislike from me, nowadays, she did it whenever she could.
She was a smart researcher who always refuted the director’s words with reasonable arguments, so I couldn’t understand why she engaged in this behavior.
Was it perhaps some kind of reaction test?
As I gently opened my eyes, Oh Yerin made a fuss and lifted me up.
She looked straight into my slightly opened eyes and smiled brightly.
Reflected in those eyes of hers was ‘me’, half-asleep with a drowsy expression.
It was the ‘Gray Reaper’, an Object with gray skin and blazing yellow eyes.
“Good morning!”
Oh Yerin was someone who was always overflowing with energy.
Aside from Oh Yerin, all the employees of this research institute were also overflowing with energy. It was truly one of the mysteries that I couldn’t understand even though I had been at this lab for a year.
The Seoul Research Institute where I worked one year ago had the atmosphere of conscripts being dragged to war.
Well, it was a place where at least one person died a month, so it was not unnatural for such an atmosphere to linger.
I endured my time in that research institute, while teetering on the edge of life and death, and convinced myself that I wouldn’t die there.
But in the end, I died during the terrorist attack on the Seoul Research Institute a year ago.
As I dozed off because it was still early in the morning, Yerin took me into her arms and sat on the sofa in the containment room.
She hugged me tightly and began recounting the exciting things that had happened on her way to work today, one by one.
This time, she told me about recently recorded Objects as well as the street restaurants she had seen in passing.
For me, who hadn’t gone out of this research institute for a year, those stories were really interesting.
“There’s news of another mass death incident occurring near Seoul Forest. Everyone said it was the Gray Reaper’s doing. But the Reaper is right here. People can be so funny.”
Yerin expressed her anger by waving my hand.
“I think it’s too much to say that it’s the Gray Reaper’s doing just because the same strange phenomenon from a year ago happened in the same place. Moreover, our research institute is a high quality institute that has never made a mistake in managing our Object.”
A death incident, huh? It was thanks to a similar incident that I met Lee Sehee, the director of the institute, a year ago.
Our relationship began when I rescued Sehee, who had been kidnapped while wandering around blindly in Seoul Forest to investigate. To think another death incident had occurred a year later….
“But do you know what’s funny? Sehee Unnie went running off to the Seoul Forest again this time. When I arrived at the lab, I saw that she left ‘Leaving for Seoul Forest’ in the office messenger.”
For some reason, I had a feeling that Sehee might have been kidnapped again this time around, but I just ignored it.
After all, no matter how clumsy Sehee was, she was still a researcher who had graduated from a prestigious university. Surely, she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, would she?
Even Yerin seemed a little worried about her as she murmured, ‘Sehee Unnie isn’t an idiot. Surely, nothing will happen to her again, right?’
